UNKNOWN REALM IS INDIESCUSSION
The click and clunk of loading a tape, that distinct winding sound. Even in 2017, there are very few feelings quite like watching a Commodore 64 in full flow. Unknown Realm is a one big love letter to those days, complete with that distinct visual flair. Bruce Gottlieb, a veteran of the industry and creator of Unknown Realm, and his business partner Laura Gottlieb spent some time talking about the creative process behind the game.
Sean: What’s the story behind how Unknown Realm’s concept was formed?
Bruce: The original concept for Unknown Realm came out of some frustrations I had with the direction RPGs were taking during the late 1980’s while I was still in high school. They started becoming focused on simulation aspects and less enjoyable to me. I wanted to do more exploring and discovering things, and less combat, simulation, and story grind. I always felt there was huge potential for this type of RPG to tell a story and keep the player’s imagination engaged at every step of the journey, but it requires the right balance otherwise, the game can quickly become a monotonous waste of the players time and intelligence.
Bruce: A big test for me as a game designer is whether the player actually finishes your game. Many players I know never finished RPGs they started because the games became too long, tedious, or generally less engaging. In my opinion, this is like an author writing a novel that is so boring or hard to read that the reader puts it down after a few chapters and doesn’t feel compelled to finish. A good RPG, like a good story, should be so engaging that the player cannot help but finish it because they are enjoying the experience at every step and can’t wait to see what happens next. Scope and pacing are very important for an RPG.
Bruce: A concept I formulated long ago is that games should be an abstraction of reality, not a simulation thereof. I think one game designer who understood this concept well was Sid Meier. His game Pirates! is just one example of what I consider great reality abstraction in a game and it influenced me greatly as a game designer. Better graphics and more realistic physics can never fix a bad game design.
Bruce: A lot the design choices that went into Unknown Realm came out of my D&D tabletop days in the 80’s. For instance, I dislike the idea that a role-playing game should have multiple players that you control. All the D&D players I knew only role-played with one character. This is why in Unknown Realm you only control yourself. Any companions in the game are computer-controlled. While I know many will disagree with me on this, I do not consider a game where you control multiple characters in a party to be a true RPG.
Bruce: I think of those games as more god-mode or strategy games, and less as true role-playing games. To me, it’s important that a player is 100% focused on role-playing only his or her own character in an RPG. Having to break character and jump from one role to the next is not immersive and quite schizophrenic in my book. I always try to avoid anything that breaks the immersion in my RPG designs. Even though I also learned many valuable concepts during my years working in the game industry, these core principles formed during the concept stage for Unknown Realm have stuck with me to this day.
Laura: Bruce has been talking about making an 8-bit RPG literally since our first date 14+ years ago. Several years ago, we made the choice to focus on this project full time. We took a pretty big risk on it to be honest, but the process of designing this game together has been really rewarding. The story of the game and the vision for the full release with the physical boxed editions has been a full creative collaboration between the two of us. It’s been really exciting to see it evolve over the last few years with roots firmly planted back in Bruce’s concept from the 80’s and both of us bringing our individual perspectives as gamers to the project.
Sean: Is there a challenge in truly recreating the 8bit look and feel to ensure it’s authenticity?
Bruce: With Unknown Realm, there was really no challenge to recreate the 8-bit look and feel because it is authentically 8-bit and made for the Commodore 64! We have no choice but to be authentic because we are working with the actual 8-bit hardware constraints of the C64. Even though the PC version of the game has its own unique enhancements, for the most part, players still will get the same authentic C64 8-bit look and feel. As a designer, I’m a bit of a purist. I think each individual gaming platform or medium has its own set of characteristics that make it special.
Bruce: The challenge for the designer is to understand those characteristics before you pick the platform for your game. The C64 to me was the perfect platform to create the ultimate 8-bit RPG. I always like to pick the best medium to fit the game, not the other way around. Sure you may be able to sell a few extra copies of your PC game if you port it to a tablet platform, but that would most likely be at the risk of diluting the original experience you intended to deliver.
Sean: The Commodore 64 remains as one of the most iconic, yet curious in retrospect, systems ever. When approaching the development process, did you spend any time studying the development cycles of games from that time period?
Bruce: Yes, I was already familiar with the development cycles of some famous C64 8-bit RPGs of the 80’s. There has been a lot published from well know C64 RPG developers about their development process and how long RPGs took to make on the C64. Making any RPG from scratch on an 8-bit system is always going to take much more time than the same type of game on a modern system where you can take advantage of tools like off the shelf game engines and plentiful memory and processing power. It amazes me that people underestimate the amount of time and effort that even an 8-bit game takes to develop. There are no shortcuts in software development when you are starting from scratch.
Sean: Can we expect Commodore 64 quirks within the game? e.g. tape sounds when loading the game etc?
Bruce: I guess the fact that this is an actual 8-bit game running in 1Mhz and 64k could be considered a quirk in and of itself. In reality, the game is designed to give nearly the same experience on PC as it does on the C64. The C64 version will have its own custom cartridge, which makes loading times practically instantaneous so there is no need to fake tape or floppy loading sounds on the PC version. However, the PC version does let you select various retro options, such as CRT modes, retro palettes and retro or modern soundtrack.
Sean: Does creating a game that imitates older technology reduce or increase development costs?
Bruce: I think making any game on older tech definitely increases development time and costs. You may have more modern tools and cross-compilers available, but you still need to work within the limitations of the older tech. The processor speed and memory available doesn’t change. Most programmers these days use modern languages and compared to an 8-bit platform, they basically have unlimited speed and memory at their disposal.
Bruce: Modern programming methods don’t work for developing a game on an 8-bit system which requires assembly language and the constraints of a 1Mhz CPU and 64k of memory. You almost need to become one with the hardware and understand it at very low levels. It’s not that people can’t learn the skills needed to do it, it’s just that you need to have a lot of persistence and vision to develop a commercial 8-bit RPG.
Sean: How much freedom will the player have over their character?
Bruce: Unknown Realm is all about freedom. It’s totally open-world and non-linear, so you can basically decide to not listen to anyone or follow any plot and go running off into the forest naked to pick mushrooms if you wish. That might not help you much in solving the game, but if that’s your thing, the game won’t stop you. You will not be restricted to unlocking levels before you can go somewhere else. That’s not to say there won’t be barriers to overcome, but once you figure those out you are free to explore what’s beyond them.
Bruce: As far as the main character, you will get to create a character based on the skills and abilities that you would like him/her to have. There are no classes or restrictions on the types of weapons or armor your character can use. If you are not powerful enough to use them yet, you just need to get more powerful first. This game is about role-playing, so if you want to play as a grumpy old mage that likes to wield a sword from time to time, there is nothing to stop you.
Sean: Was there any temptation in trying to add modern elements into the game to make it more conventionally ‘fun’?
Bruce: I think many modern elements and things considered “conventional” in RPGs these days are not that much fun at all. This game is about taking a different approach. Many RPGs today are about the grind and the western RPG has definitely become too influenced by JRPGs in my opinion. The player spends 80% of their time in combat grind. If you took that away, you’d be left with a bunch of long cutscenes, lots of running around, and a few dozen button clicks.
Bruce: The good news is that there has been a resurgence of the western RPG over the last few years, and it even looks like the new Zelda will have more traditional, open-world, western RPG elements to it. That said, in the interest of convenience, there are some modern conventions we have adopted for Unknown Realm, such as automapping, auto-journal, mini-games, NPC portraits, and a cleaner, simplified interface. We really wanted to create an RPG that you could play for short or long periods of time and easily pick up later without being totally lost.
Laura: It might not be a modern element, but one of the unique aspects of this game is that we are bringing back the old school, big box “feelies” that used to be a major part of the PC RPG experience. We feel like this was one of the most fun things about old school RPGs, where you could have a fully integrated game experience with physical elements like a cloth map and paper manuals and feelies that are incorporated into the actual gameplay. You can, of course, enjoy the full game experience with the digital only version, but the
physical versions really enhance the experience.
Sean: Unknown Realm was successful on both Steam Greenlight and Kickstarter. When it comes to crowd funding, how do you decide which platform to use?
Laura: Kickstarter was the obvious choice because of its proven track record for indie game developers. There are a growing number of options out there for crowdfunding and we’re excited to see other possibilities, such as Fig. However, we knew we had a good chance of connecting with our audience on Kickstarter because we had already backed several C64-related projects over the years, in addition to major western RPG projects like Bards Tale IV and Shroud of the Avatar.
Laura: We’ve been a part of the Kickstarter community for several years and we’ve observed that being actively involved in supporting other projects before launching your own makes a difference for creators in terms of success. Plus there’s a little karma at work there – supporting others often comes back in good ways when you launch your own project.
Sean: Did you feel any additional pressure after seeing your Kickstarter goal exceeded?
Laura: Yes! There was a definite shift that happened after we met our goal. We took an unorthodox approach to our campaign in that we did almost zero marketing in the lead up to our launch. When we launched, we had to hustle hard for every single pledge. There was a lot of disbelief on the various game forums about what we were doing and we heard a lot of comments telling us that our goal was unrealistically high. To go from that, to fully funded in two weeks was pretty satisfying and we felt like it was a really special thing we shared with the backers who came in early and supported the project.
Laura: They fought with us (and for us) to make the project successful and we felt a great sense of common cause with our backers because of this. Once we got closer to our base funding goal, the talk about stretch goals started. This shifts the momentum and can be a turn off to some backers. The people who come in early because they love the main idea get a little nervous because they don’t want to see a project they’re excited about getting hijacked by a bunch of secondary goals. To be honest, we weren’t interested in stretch goals at all and planned very few of them before we launched.
Laura: We had some extra “wish list” items that we wanted to implement, but we were focused on making sure we could deliver the main project well and don’t want to get sidetracked. We found ourselves having to say “no” to a lot of suggested stretch goal ideas from our backers because we knew they would be distractions from us delivering our core game.
Laura: So yes, there is pressure when you meet your goal, especially earlier in the campaign. You don’t want to lose sight of what got you there in the first place, but you also want to keep the momentum going because development is very costly and more funding helps with any unforeseen problems that may arise during production.
Sean: Steam Greenlight has garnered something of a bad name for itself. The lack of quality control allows for asset flips and barely there games to be put on the platform. As both an indie developer and user, do you feel Greenlight needs to be addressed by Valve?
Laura: First off, running a Steam Greenlight felt like a cakewalk compared to Kickstarter. We opted to launch that campaign mid-Kickstarter and it worked well for us because our project was already funded by the time our Greenlight campaign went live. We took a gamble doing it this way because if we hadn’t been successful early on with the Kickstarter campaign, this approach may have backfired on us. We were greenlit in about two weeks, so despite our frustrations with the platform, the process does work (from our perspective anyway).
Laura: Steam Direct was announced soon after our project was greenlit. While I think it’s a step in the right direction, I would still like to see the Greenlight voting process preserved in some way, at least for first-time publishers on Steam. That kind of community building activity is important, especially for unknown indie devs. I think a fair solution would be something along the lines of a $1000 fee per game, plus 1000 yes votes to establish that there is some kind of demand for the game. Ideally, Valve wouldn’t take their percentage out of sales until the dev recoups their $1000 fee. Overall, I think (so far) Steam Direct sounds like a step in the right direction.
Sean: The indie development scene has grown rapidly in the last few years. Do you feel we’re in the golden age of indies? Or are we heading towards a crash?
Laura: People will always want to play games and there’s almost always room in the market for a good product that is creative and interesting. We are doing something with our project that hasn’t been done on this scale in about 30 years, which is bringing back the classic 8-bit RPG release, with a physical box of feelies. This strikes a nerve with a particular kind of gamer who’s really been overlooked for awhile by the game industry. No one has made a game like this with the physical release so carefully integrated with what’s going on in the game, versus just throwing a few trinkets or art cards in a box and calling them feelies.
Laura: We’re offering an all-new adventure for these gamers because that’s what we’ve been craving and we knew there were others out there like us. To us, the whole question of “golden age” or “crash” isn’t something we’re terribly concerned about because we’re not trying to keep up with gaming trends. We’re just happy to see our game connect with the people we made it for and excited to see its potential to reach a new audience on places like Steam and GOG. And hopefully, we can convince some younger gamers to see what they’ve been missing with the traditional RPG game box experience.
Sean: After conquering the Commodore 64, what’s next? Can we expect to see a Magnavox Odyssey game?
Laura: Sorry to disappoint, it’s safe to say we will not be making a Magnavox Odyssey game. We love the C64 and would love to continue making C64 games, but Stirring Dragon Games also has some other surprises up our sleeve. You’ll just have to stay tuned!
You can find more information on Unknown Realm on
Stirring Dragon’s official website. Late backers can still place a pledge via the
Kickstarter page. Twitter users can also find regular updates on the
official feed.
